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Commentary

Of the City of the Saved...

Faction Paradox

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OF THE CITY OF THE SAVED

COMMENTARY: BACK COVER BLURB

Coming up with the back cover text for Of the City of the Saved... was one of the fun parts of the editing process: firstly because it involved creating something new, and secondly because I always enjoy writing to strict rules – I believe that they free up the creativity like a kind of inspirational castor oil. I have a perverse enjoyment for written-to-formula fiction, such as that practiced by the Oulipo writers: the most famous product of the movement being Georges Perec's famous novel La Disparition, written entirely without the use of the letter “e” (and, astonishingly, translated into English by Gilbert Adair under the title A Void).

My cover blurb was less demanding, obviously: it merely had to be a certain length, to be immediately arresting, and to convey a clear idea of what the novel was a) like and b) about, without actually spoiling any of the plot.

My initial approach was to try and summarise the salient points of the setup. Since Of the City of the Saved... is a huge, sprawling edifice of a book, this was something of a challenge, and the result of that approach reads too densely for a back cover. (At only 75 words, the “About the Author” blurb was theoretically even more of a challenge: rather humiliatingly, I managed to cover everything important with a couple of them to spare.)

Eventually, I changed my approach, and decided to treat the blurb (rather like the official Preview to the novel) as a miniature short story in its own right. The result of that approach should be alluring and intriguing; it should tease and titillate, tempting the reader to investigate what might be available between the covers.

Whether or not it's successful in this is, of course, up to the conscience of the individual.

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